Vespitole
Vespitole and Friends is the recommended starter deck for beginners. While it's not as strong a deck as many of the other cheap decks listed, it is the absolute cheapest, requiring no scarce or rare cards. Gameplay The basic gameplay of Vespitole & Friends is to buy at least one ally from the bank every turn, and use their on-turn effects to hoard resources. Use as few resources to keep enemies board clear, and then when you have enough resources, win. Even if the enemy removes your allies from the board, you can play a lot of them back at once thanks to the "draw a card" on every Vespitole card. Key Cards * Wealthy Patron (+2 gold/turn, +1 gold on feed) * Courtesan (+2 skulls/turn, +1 skulls on feed) * Vintner (+2 gold/turn, +1 gold on feed) These cards are all key because when at maximum level ("maxed") they cost four gold, the amount a Vespitole player gets each turn they buy a card. It's very important with this to play a card each turn, so try to use as no more than 3 cards that cost above four as possible. Or if you use cards above 4 gold at maximum level (like Mercenary or Supplicant), try to have a similar number that cost under four gold like a maxed Palisade. Get these cards to max level as soon as possible, as these will be the strongest cards in your deck. Helpful Cards All prices are the gold cost at maximum level Other Allies * Ballista (4 gold for 2 hp, slight downside of can't help you hoard resources) * Militia (3 gold and can attack when fed) * Palisade (absorbs 2 attacks for 3 gold) * Mercenary (attacks on feed and has 2 hp) * Supplicant (has 2 hp, produces magic, 5 gold) * Marshal (each ally activates again on turn, 6 gold) You will need other allies to support your key cards. Many of these have 2 health, making them harder to remove from the board. Actions * Courtly Intrigue (4 gold, +1 skull when played, can help in the early game to remove the opponents allies) * Collect Taxes (4 gold,+1 gold when played, can help if you're using a deck with a number of 5 gold cards) * Spice Route (4 gold, +1 food when played) Actions are useful for keeping your deck cost low. As well, unlike allies they don't have to stay alive to give benefit. A more hidden benefit of these cards is that their "draw a card" effect can draw allies your opponent removed on their last turn (since you draw cards at the end of your turn, before they get to remove your allies). Keeping one of these actions in your hand whenever you're worried about losing a number of allies can help you get some of them back early. Big Swings * Harvest (+1 food/ally, cheapest) * Spy Network (+1 skull/ally, hero card) * Liturgy (+1 magic/ally, most expensive) * Benediction (all allies activate their "on feed" or "on turn" ability when it's played) Waiting for your allies to survive a turn can be tough. Sometimes your opponent will just keep getting the resources to remove your allies from the board every turn. These Big Swing cards will allow you to gain resources from your allies without giving your enemy a turn to remove them. You do not need to use Ingots to reduce these cards' cost as reducing their cost isn't as effective as reducing your allies costs, and Wealthy Patrons will give you a lot of excess gold which is very useful for these cards. If you are worried about losing a large board of allies before they activate, use one of these cards! It is strongly recommended to have at most one of these in your deck. Heroes While this deck will be build for the first and only Vespitole hero you own at the time, Captain Listrata, as you find the other Vespitole heroes in card packs you can make similar decks for them with slight differences because of their different hero ability. Captain Listrata You can use Captain Listrata's +1 food/turn on allies with "on feed" abilities like Militia or Courtesan. Use them to ensure your ally doesn't put anything on the board first. Cardinal Pocchi Pocchi has a tougher time removing enemy allies from the board in the first few turns, but with his extra gold he gets a turn he can constantly play beefier allies like Ballista, Supplicant, and Mercenary and hope they survive. Sofocatro Sofocatro's ability to remove enemy allies with his skull generation allows him to be the most flexible with his card choice, as he doesn't need to get an on-feed ally out early like Listrata, or rely on beefy allies like Pocchi. Category:Deck